Short intro to the talk: The number of dendrites of the the most numerous neuron in the brain - the granule cell of the cerebellum - is remarkably conserved throughout evolution and across animal species. In this talk, I will illustrate how this anatomical feature is constrained by the function that the cerebellum is required to perform.

Short intro to the talk: How the brain represents stimuli is still a matter of debate. It is unclear how important is the precise time of spikes in order to encode information. This study suggests that taking into account the interaction between neurons might undermine conclusions based on estimates of average information in single neurons.